Marshon Brooks

Razzball Nation! We’re here on a special weekend wrap-up where Slim (this is JB speaking) got to the action and JB just snuck in the beginning. And snuck in the end! I’m like Brad Pitt at the Oscars. “Wait, why is he winning best picture! So confused right now…” Tomorrow I’ll proudly illustrate what I did over the weekend, but a nice defining touch hoops-wise was another great one from my boy Mike Scott, who while posting great lines, isn’t helping the Hawks win… And that’s a problem! Especially with Paul Millsap assumedly back sometime soon this week. But I thought Gravity mighta gotten best picture too! After a really rough send-off last Monday, went bonkers on the Suns for 20/5/2/3/0 with three treys and not a single TO. I bet Philly sports fans wish they had no TO. BOOM! Double sports joke. The main number that got my emoji tats all excited was the 40 mins played. Millsap is going to travel with the Hawks as they migrate on a 5-game road trip, but very easily could miss the first few making Scott a solid short-term add. So beam him aboard, win a big week as we near playoff time, and don’t forget to yell over the music if those pompous mf#@*$ng PA guys at the Oscars wanna condescend you by playing the music. And here’s Slim with what he saw over the weekend:

The trade deadline is here! Today! And even though we had a few trades already go down, more are sure to proliferate through the league office. Hopefully the NBA has faster fax machines than the NFL. I mean, seriously on that Elvis Dumervil thing?! BREAKING NEWS! The Heat trade LeBron James to Cleveland for Anthony Bennett, but the trade was sent just over a month too late. Reports indicate it was sent on April 1st. Hah! Sent from some hooligan named David Stern… You’ve been punked Adam Silver! Back to reality, we’ve seen Marcus Thornton get traded to the grandpa Nets for Jason Terry and Reggie Evans and Steve Blake get all his fantasy value decapitated Hershel-Walking Dead style by getting shipped to the Warriors for Kent Bazemore and MarShon Brooks. The takeaways thus far is you can cut Blake in virtually all leagues, and in deeper leagues I actually think Reggie Evans could start at some point as the Kings 4. Jason Thompson is one of the many rumored on the trading block which would open up that role. I’m not saying Evans would play 30 minutes or anything, but could maybe average 8 boards a game while doing nothing else in the typical Evans fashion. So when I say deeper leagues, I mean deeeeeeper. We’ll recap the rest of the trades in tomorrow morning’s piece as well as in the comments throughout the afternoon to help with your fantasy moves. Here’s what else went down in NBA action:

Sometimes it’s nice, oh so nice, to see so much potential that you saw through the preseason finally get the chance to shine, the star to sizzle, the Sun to finally get his run. With Eric Bledsoe sitting last night with a bruised shin, my boy Archie Goodwin finally got a chance, running a season-high 19 minutes for 16/2/2/2 shooting 7-10 and hitting a three, including this highlight worthy pick 6. “Give me a chance coach!” Goodwin has great speed and a good feel for the game for a 19-year-old, and is showing a little bit of what he could do should he get extended time. The Suns backcourt is flooded, muddled mostly by the breakout Gerald Green is putting on, but the hot start-Suns have now dropped three straight, going from 3-1 to 5-5. Green is an ultimate sell-high, both in fantasy and in the NBA trade market, for his highlight-inducing big plays and he’s shooting 12% better from the field and 11% better from 3-point land than last year. Obviously 2012-13 was a disaster, so some bounce back was coming, but yea, if the Suns could get anything in return, they’ll take it. With Green signed through next season and Goran Dragic with a player-option for next year, both are potential trade chips the Suns could use to build around Bledsoe. Sure, I’m dreaming up a scenario that may not be the most likely, but what I’m really dreaming about is a Bledsoe/Goodwin starting backcourt. Mmmmmm. Fantasy goodness everywhere! Goodwin is worth keeping an eye on with the Bledsoe shin injury in the deepest of leagues, and deeper dynasty leagues should have him on the radar as well. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops:

The period of free agency continues to shape the fantasy basketball-scape with fresh meat on terrible teams and players signing with contenders to be relegated to bench duty. With baseball in fun swing and the NFL getting half of the ESPN air time no matter what time of year it is, a lot of NBA moves have been made under the radar. Look for every division to get a team-by-team breakdown and some early fantasy thoughts on the new faces in new places:

If you’ve been keeping up with me since I took over the basketball reigns here for Razzball Nation, you know I’ve had two guys I’ve been all about. Tobias Harris and Jonas Valanciunas. Yes the luminescent Lithuanian (LL). Not Latvian! Easy mistake… OK, so I’m not one to talk, I’m paler than an Icelander living in Seattle. But it sounded cool when I made it up.

At the ripe young age of 20, Valanciunas is owning the post, and is doing a Tyler Hansbrough impression of what Psycho-T did in college, just throwing up shizz and getting to the line. LL (see, this is much better than typing his name correctly every time) has been scoring double-digits a night, but hit his career-high yesterday with 24 in 41 minutes. The crazy thing is, he took only 7 shots! Went 16-18 at the free throw line for a splendid line of 24-10-1-1-2. I know pounding Nene and the rest of the Wiz bigs down low isn’t exactly a huge accomplishment, but I’m gonna be all over him for next year. And if for some reason he’s available in your league, nab him for your championship run.

Ask and ye shall receive (unless it’s money, I’m broke). If you see anyone I missed or guys that you think should be included (I did NOT miss Hasheem Thabeet), shout it out in the comments. I’ll tell you which tier I’d put em in or why I did not/would not include them.

It’s the moment all (some) of you (me?) have been waiting for, the top 200. This will polish off our 2012-2013 fantasy basketball rankings, which is good, because trying to value 6 rebounds per game versus 4 assists per game can make a man go crazy.

I think it’s obvious that I am big on Demarcus Cousins. Looking back, I should have ranked him #1. No, not above LeBron James (who had 20 points and 5 assists, FYI) for this season. I meant #1 all time. Better than Jordan, Magic or Chamberlain.

Yeah, you caught me. You didn’t believe it because there aren’t any grizzly bears in Memphis. Look how smart you are! ESPN readers would have tweeted the headline without thinking. Now if the headline read “Gilbert Arenas Fights Grizzly Bear In Vancouver” then you totally would have believed it.